Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life? - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2013/10/why-does-windows-have-terrible-battery-life.html <comment><USER3> Windows and Linux are general purpose OSes. The same kernel runs on high throughput servers and low power tablets. The apps are written with little focus on battery life. The drivers too. Microsoft doesn't write their own drivers and then there's firmware too. It's the one area where Apple has really taken advantage of the vertical integration - they do everything from firmware to most apps people use.

But both Windows and Linux are more than capable to get this all sorted. Like Google showed with the Nexus 7 - focus is all that's needed. It's just harder for Microsoft considering everything they need to juggle.

Edit: Fun fact: Apple's own Boot Camp drivers disable USB selective suspend on the 2013 Air! Check our powercfg /energy for more fun :)

Edit 2: Surface is Tegra 4 SoC isn't it? Microsoft still is limited by Tegra's power characteristics as far as what I can tell from Anand's review. So the integration story is better but still no match to Apple.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps you missed the part about Mac OS X (also a general purpose OS) using significantly less battery than windows on the exact same hardware. _And_ that's not even considering OS 10.9 which is due to be released soon which has a bunch of battery life improvements (rumored to be around a 10% to 15% increase).

<comment><USER5> There's nothing general purpose about Mac OS X as far as hardware support is concerned. Just like iOS, it only has to target a very small set of hardware configurations.

Edit: as pointed out elsewhere, this doesn't excuse MS from not taking advantage of the same vertical integration on their own hardware...

<comment><USER4> As far as I know they still use the Darwin kernel in iOS. Which means it scales from desktops and servers all the way down to phones... That seems pretty general purpose to me.

<comment><USER6> No one uses Darwin for servers, not even Apple.

<comment><USER7> No one except a fair amount of people: [http://www.macminicolo.net/](http://www.macminicolo.net/)

You can turn old laptops into "servers", or raspberry pi's, or hell even a commodore 64 for that matter. As long as it serves something of value over a network it qualifies.

Whether its a good idea is another matter.

<comment><USER8> I think the fact you felt the need to put the word servers in quotes does a lot to show that you and justincormack are talking about computers serving a similar role, but with such laughably different requirements that it's obvious what point he was trying to make, and your statement, while technically correct, doesn't really change his point.

You are correct though, people do use commodity and low-end hardware for extremely light server needs, and even in data centers.

<comment><USER7> I put servers in quotes to denote something that serves that wasn't purpose built for the role. Nothing more, the context from justincormack wasn't lost but there are a lot of uses for osx servers, for example compile farms.

What I was referring to, which I thought was apparent but failed to convey, is that this perception of nobody doing it is a fallacy.

<comment><USER8> We are saying the same thing. My post wasn't meant to contradict yours, just clarify.

> What I was referring to, which I thought was apparent but failed to convey, > is that this perception of nobody doing it is a fallacy.

I just think that in this context the "nobody" you are referring to and the "nobody" he is referring to are not equal sets. Yours is a superset of his, which is why both statements are true (in spirit), while yours is true in fact.

<comment><USER7> True enough, think its been a long day for me then. Sorry for the confusion on my end.

I do believe that means it is beer o clock time. Cheers and no worries mate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I find the MBA vs Surface Pro 2 comparison to be more than slightly misleading:

>The screen is somewhat lower resolution

No, 1920x1080 isn't only somewhat higher than 1366x768, it's 1.97 times the number of pixels and the panel is PLS unlike the TN in the MBA. The display is the component that eats up the battery the most when doing things like Wi-Fi browsing, even the battery life of the MBA scales heavily with the level of brightness.

>not touch capable

It also has an another, separate layer for the Wacom digitizer, it has to be constantly emitting an electromagnetic field, which does take its toll on power consumption.

>i5-4200u CPU

It's i5-4250U, with a considerably lower base clock (1.3GHz vs 1.6GHz).

Another fact that all the recent articles about the Surface Pro 2 fail to mention, but isn't really relevant to the what the article is about, is that, with the Power Cover that was announced at the Surface keynote, it should be able to get 11.45 hours of Wi-Fi browsing if you extrapolate the results from the Anandtech benchmark, or about 12.9 hours if you do it with the 7:33 hours it got on The Verge review. This does bring the weight and thickness of the device above the MBA though.

<comment><USER10> Woah, someone who did research.

Indeed: it is a known fact that Apple gets custom exclusive low-clocked CPUs from Intel. Apple's chips are closer to "Y" class Intel Chips, which are designed for exceptionally long battery life at cost to performance.

Overall, I think the better screen, Wacom Digitizer, and faster CPU will all add up to the difference between the Surface2 and MBA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> When you aren't creating the hardware, it is harder to care about power management in the software because that is seen as "someone else's problem". It is easy to blame things on terrible drivers or whatever, but no matter how you look at it, the product is worse as a result.

This is why Microsoft needs to keep building their own hardware like the Surface. As time goes on, if Microsoft does it right, Surface is going to be the best Windows experience. At least, I would hope so.

<comment><USER12> Microsoft needs to keep building their own hardware because 3rd party manufacturers are doing to Microsoft's brand what Mac clones did to Apple in the early 90s.

The Surface is absolutely gorgeous. If they softened the edges on the tablet portion it would be on my list of greatest pieces of tech hardware ever made. I would love to see MS try to build its own 'Yoga' type laptop...provided I can still install Linux on it.

Dell, Lenovo, Sony, and HP should be ashamed of themselves. Apple makes the best hardware to run Windows on and they don't even like that you can.

<comment><USER13> No doubt on the quality but the reality here is that even with proprietary hardware and thus able to optimize everything for the surface like apple does it this has a low battery life.

It's all the x86 baggage windows has, osx threw everything from the powerpc years away, let alone the stuff from the previous 20 years of systemOS. Windows still carries crap from when 32mb of ram was more expensive than a computer today.

And for what? I got several winxp apps that don't work with 7 or 8, it's pointless.

<comment><USER14> I seriously doubt it's x86 baggage. You don't pay a battery life penalty for code you don't execute.

<comment><USER15> While you don't use the battery for code you don't execute, when your code is finely tuned to a single machine (as in CPU + auxiliary chips) architecture rather than able to run on a wider choice of hardware, you may be able to squeeze some extra juice from your battery.

<comment><USER16> Except MacOS X ships fat binaries for multiple CPU architectures and uses a kernel originally designed in the 1980's for an m68k machine.

<comment><USER15> Shipping fat binaries with different versions for every different Atom/Core/Xeon/FX/Phenom/Opteron Intel/AMD/Nvidia + chipset glue combination would be quite a feat.

This could go well beyond what compiling every package for your specific machine can do.

<comment><USER17> Openstep supported quad fat binaries iirc, supporting x86, sparc, mips, and I think pa-risc. Gotta say the NeXT software architecture has aged well.

<comment><USER15> That's not what I was talking about. I said that, if all you support is a specific Intel Atom processor, you can tweak your kernel to support every bit of energy-saving performance-enhancing silicon in there.

Shipping fat binaries is not new. I remember them (not very fondly) from the MacOS 7/PPC days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Well, how about this: because MS doesn't care. It's too late, the code is too large and too old, the developers are too new, no one knows what's going on and this whole thing is a giant rolling monster with parts flying out every second, killing innocent batteries.

<comment><USER19> I would argue that the Windows NT kernel is both newer and more maintainable for Microsoft than OSX is for Apple. At the core of OSX is a ton of legacy Unix monolith written in the 70s that I suspect very few in Apple dare ever touch.

This can be seen by the fact that Microsoft has never shied away from improving their OS kernel. Recent stand-out improvements such as ASLR, UAC, TRIM support for SSDs, timer coalescing etc. These are all things that OSX took years to get after Windows got them.

<comment><USER20> And of course the smashing success of WinFS.

<comment><USER19> I don't really think that WinFS was a core OS kernel feature. It was built on top of SQL Server, so I doubt it even had a kernel-mode component either.

ReFS would be a better example. And that's just another example of how Microsoft is keeping their core technology up to date. Apple meanwhile is still using HFS+ which even Linus Torvalds called out as being utterly crap.

<comment><USER21> What doesn't Tovalds call out as being utterly crap?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I see and agree with the larger point he's making, but a 42% increase in a single generation strikes me as _huge_ , not just "decent."

And this?

 _If you want a device that delivers maximum battery life for light web browsing, there 's no question that you should get something with an Apple logo on it._

Except the top two champs on the Anandtech chart - champs which are _way_ ahead of a fairly close pack - don't have such logos. If one is honestly trying to illustrate the simple point that Windows has a power problem, its a strange conclusion to draw.

<comment><USER23> The first half the article is comparing three or even four different classes of device. He's got a mobile gaming console hardware wise the equivalent of a phone, a 7 inch ARM tablet, some ~10 inch ARM tablets, and an x86 tablet.

It's like comparing apples, oranges, peaches, and tomatoes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Because Apple have custom ACPI methods for cutting power to unused components and Windows doesn't know how to call them.

<comment><USER25> That might explain the case of MacBook Air, but how come they don't do something similar with Surface Pro? It is their hardware, firmware and software - everything should be possible.

<comment><USER26> A quick Google search shows many Windows laptops with equivalent or better battery life. Is your question why don't _all_ Windows laptops have equal battery life?

<comment><USER27> > A quick Google search shows many Windows laptops with equivalent or better > battery life.

I don't want to state the obvious, but different laptops have different capacity batteries. Atwood was comparing the 11" MBA to the Surface Pro 2 as they have similar battery capacities (SP2: 42 Wh, MBA: 38 Wh), and - <USER2> Maakuth notes -- are both made by companies in control of both software and hardware. The fact that you can find laptops with higher capacity batteries that have longer battery life doesn't prove very much.

<comment><USER28> A 100% true test is when you have the same hardware. Running windows on MBA is defect because Apple writes iOS for their hardware. So if we have a magical power to run iOS on another hardware and run Windows on that same hardware, then the test is fair. But that doesn't need to as windows-based tablets hardware are not always as polish as apple's.

<comment><USER29> They have numbers for your 100% true test. That is where the final 50% difference comes from.

2013 MacBook Air 13"

Under OS X: 14hr 26 min

Under Win8: 7 hrs 40 min

Though I am not sure I would call that 100% fair. Apple wrote the firmware and drivers used by each OS, so it has a vested interest in getting something out there that works but not optimizing for the competition.

<comment><USER30> Your parent already said he did not consider running Windows on Apple hardware to be a fair test; he was calling for running both on <GENERIC PC>

<comment><USER29> Yeah, but what are you going to see in the real world? You are going to see OS X on Apple hardware and Windows on whatever random box the person had handy. Sounds pretty much like what they tested.

<comment><USER28> The test indicates something more important than Window's performance and that is monothilic designer like Apple can in fact make a great product if the designer chooses to. If Windows were to make their own laptop and invest the same amount of resource into bothe software and hardware, the comparison will be more interesting.

In essence, your average OEM does not do a great job. The capacitor, the transistors they use are probably way cheaper than what Apple have put into their MBA. That is expected because after all, your Dell computer is not going to cost $1499.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Anecdotal, but on an older 11" MacBook Air I have a dual-boot with elementary OS (Ubuntu derivative) and I get around 20-30% better battery life with Linux than OS X (using laptop-mode-tools etc). I think this is probably due to all the iCloud crap going on with OS X these days, but I have no proof of that.

<comment><USER32> Anectotical counter point:

I have a old netbook that I've had running win7 starter, win7 ultimate running from the old SSD i had in my desktop, and a bunch of linux distros. So far, the win7 ultimate configured for a desktop pc has been the most energy efficient.

<comment><USER31> That's probably true if they are running older versions of the kernel, which were not optimised for battery. If you install a recent kernel and load laptop-mode-tools I'm sure you might see different results, if not that is a strange result for sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Surely a lot of this comes down to the screen?

Battery life varies greatly between e.g. Google Chromebook systems, running the same software (and between windows systems for that matter).

Some of this is to do with the power usage of the CPU, and whether video decoding is done in low power hardware, or which wireless chipset is used. But just looking at the power usage manager on your Android phone will tell you that the screen uses most of the power.

Windows hardware varies from high priced ultra books (where all is sacrificed for shininess and performance), to bargain bin systems where using an old backlighting technology saves a few bucks.

Question to Apple users - comparing windows laptops to your mac, which shipped with the more aggressive power saving settings in terms of turning the screen off when not in use?

</comment><comment><USER34> In the Windows prompt (admin mode) you can use the following command to monitor (it will generate a HTML file) energy usage (for 60 seconds):

      powercfg –ENERGY

I can see some problems on my own system. For example _" USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Suspend"_

Maybe misconfigurations like these are also causing more power consumption than needed.

<comment><USER35> The correct syntax is:

powercfg /ENERGY

<comment><USER34> Both work.

      powercfg /?

shows -ENERGY

<comment><USER36> Not sure if that applies all over the line. On my win8 install only /energy works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I wonder if Maverics will widen the gap further. It has that app suspension thing when some window goes invisible.

Also there are some decent performance improvements that would mean less cpu usage (or bursts of them, which is more power efficient).

Are there any benchmarks? Or is it still behind NDA?

<comment><USER38> I'm seeing around 1 to 1.5 more hours of operation on Mavericks on a 2012 Macbook Air 11". Now, that is not for web browsing but for development & debugging with Xcode, so I'm usually never reaching these marvellous 6+ hour rates, but with Mavericks it went basically from 3-4 hours to 4-6 hours, which is fantastic.

I'm pretty sure that that will only widen the gap between OSX and Windows on Laptop hardware.

The 13" Macbook Air could then theoretically reach 17 hours of operation time!

<comment><USER39> I've read report about improvement battery life on Mavericks. I just didn't expect the difference is that huge. Gotta update as soon as it's out ; )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Surely this doesn't just affect mobile devices. If the OS causes a higher power drain, then it must be more expensive to run a Windows server than an OS X/Linux server.

</comment><comment><USER41> When Windows 7 launched, I had a netbook with XP on it, on which I got about 5 hours on Wi-Fi with just browsing. I put Windows 7 on it, the battery life dropped to 3.5 hours, which is a huge 30 percent decrease. So it's incredible that Windows 8 has become even worse at battery life since then, instead of becoming better.

</comment><comment><USER42> Might it be that the Win7/Vista drivers for the MBA are worse that the OSX drivers?

We see the comparisons: Surface <-> iPad, OSX MBA <-> Win7/Vista MBA

Surface has different architecture than the iPad, so the battery difference is easily explained, and maybe driver support is just less than stellar, meaning HW isn't as efficient and/or doesn't scale back quickly enough?

I had an Asus laptop some years ago that would last 3 hours under Vista, and would be dead in the water in 1 hour under Ubuntu. I think it was either GPU or CPU scaling or both that wasn't supported in the linux drivers I was using

<comment><USER41> No, you're seeing comparison with the Surface Pro 2, which has same battery size as MBA, and hardware made by Microsoft themselves.

<comment><USER42> Ah yes, I missed that WattHour spec. That's pretty dreadful then..

So the real comparison is SP2 (42Wh) with 6 hrs. vs. MBP 11' (38Wh) with 11 hrs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Windows does not have a terrible battery life. That's so simple. The difference between OSX and Windows are related to drivers.

The charts are quite ridiculous in the article - comparing an Ivy Bridge, actively cooled laptop-tablet to a Nexus 7? Why?

BTW, the biggest difference is maybe CPU core hotplugging, this exists in Android and iOS but does not in Windows RT.

<comment><USER44> "The charts are quite ridiculous in the article - comparing an Ivy Bridge, actively cooled laptop-tablet to a Nexus 7? Why?"

The relevant comparison was the surface pro 2, (a joke of a tablet), has a 42 Wh battery and runs a mere 6.6 hours, but the macbook 11 inch has a smaller 38 Wh battery yet runs longer at 11.1 hours very nearly twice as long.

<comment><USER45> > surface pro 2, (a joke of a tablet)

mind sharing why you think it is a joke of a tablet?

<comment><USER44> People spend money to conform for mating rituals or to gain power.

You don't conform for mating rituals by purchasing some weird thing that no one else wants.

(non-engineering defined) Power comes out of what you can do with something, not meaningless specification numbers (however awful they are for the surface pro 2). So to do something powerful on a surface pro 2, you go to itunes app store for that cool new app and ... whoops I mean play.google.com and ... whoops I mean I hope you never leave the tiny walled garden of the shovelware it ships with, because no 3rd parties are going to pay any attention to it and it'll be forgotten about in a year at most. Its got the expandability of a fisher price toy tablet.

So if you're trying to impress/intimidate/mate (all three?), its about as useful as wearing a Darth Vader costume other than on Halloween, if you're trying to collect meaningless specs its one of the worst in class for battery life, if you're trying to actually do something you need a real supported tablet like an apple or google tablet. So other than that, its a great... paperweight?

<comment><USER46> HN must have not sprayed for evopsych in a while.

<comment><USER47> This comment isn't helping, but I can't resist - HN is inevitably devolving into /r/technology...

Kind of sad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I'm curious to know how the latest Linux fares on a Macbook Air.

<comment><USER49> Aren't all the andorid devices mentioned inherently run on linux ?

<comment><USER50> The battery life of the Nexus 7 is almost the same using Desktop Ubuntu compared to Android.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> The short answer is polling. There's nothing better at draining a battery than infinite loops waiting for something to happen. I bet Windows have too many of those, remnant from the days where power consumption didn't matter because your PC is plugged into a socket at all times.

<comment><USER52> I'm sorry, but that really is not an answer at all. It's just a fairly obvious GUESS.

<comment><USER51> It's not really a guess. Anyone who worked with power constrained devices would tell you it's because of polling.

If I told you the biggest culprit is component xyz, that would be a guess.

<comment><USER52> Is too! If he doesn't know, he's guessing.

I can easily think of a myriad of SW explanations why Windows devices might have worse battery performance than Macs on similar HW that are not "polling": too long of a boot sequence, too many running processes, inefficiencies in the OS kernel in scheduling, memory management or caching, quality of ARM port, bugs in device drivers, bugs in the web browser, bugs in other applications etc. etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Microsoft turned Windows 95 into a full-fledged multi-user operating system. Segmented user space? Unix had done that for years. All users where admin and it was horrible, but lot's of apps ran on it, so people bought it and used it. Then they merged Win95 into WinNT and gave us Windows 2000.

Now they are turning a full-fledged multi-user OS into a tablet OS. Let's make this tank into a bicycle. History tells us there will be a few painful years.

<comment><USER54> I'm curious to know what they took from W95 to give W2K. I've used NT3.5 and up and I didn't notice any w95 influence, unless you mean start button and desktop.

<comment><USER4> NT4 was the one that took cues from Windows 95—it took the desktop and start button, but it also took the whole grey UI/widget look. NT 3.5 had the same cheesy look and toy program launcher as Windows 3.1. NT4 was the first good windows version (though Windows 95 was the first to be almost as usable as the classic Mac OS).

As far as I remember Win2k was a refinement of NT4, not the same revolutionary leap as 3.5 to 4 was.

<comment><USER54> Those are mainly cosmetic changes. The other 99% was a whole new OS.

<comment><USER4> I'm not disagreeing that Windows 95 and Windows NT are completely different OSes. But I do disagree that it is "just" cosmetic—the desktop and forms APIs are the basis for the UI of the whole system. It's like saying Mac OS X -> iOS was just a cosmetic change, since much of the underlying OS and kernel are still the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I remember from years ago writing Win32 programs, that it mostly consisted of an eventloop and you have a giant switch reacting to WM_* messages. On a deep level, does OSX apps work the same way?

<comment><USER56> Almost all UI frameworks work this way including Android, iOS and Cocoa. They receive events from the OS or window manager (mouse moved, keyboard button pressed, touches moved) and dispatch it to the app. The only difference is how the events are dispatched.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I'm actually saddened by the fact that we consider 8 hours of battery life satisfactory, and 14 hours nothing short of _astronomical_. Anything less than a full day work for a _mobile_ device should be unacceptable.

Smartphones are particularly bad at it. If anyone remembers Palm devices, they could last for more than a week (!) on one charge. With my Nexus 4, even with light usage, I've come to a habit to plug it in whenever possible, it goes that fast.

We all love feature-rich devices, but I think, currently, the promoted features and hardware are way ahead of the battery capabilities. And it's not OK.

<comment><USER58> So would you be happy with modern devices with Palm screens? I don't think anyone would. The screens are the power drains. The actual processing power has skyrocketed, and I consider the power available in a modern phone to be quite amazing.

I had a Palm 3e that took AA batteries if I recall correctly. True, the battery life was quite good but the volatile memory was not - you needed to replace the batteries within seconds of taking them out else you lost everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I think the article is asking the wrong question. A better question is: why does Apple (OSX/iOS) have such _awesome_ battery life? After all, it wasn't always this good, or rather, it's been improving by leaps and bounds, both with new hardware and with new OS versions.

I think the answer is that Apple really, really cares and has been extremely focused on power/performance for a number of years. It has the focus, the institutional awareness and know-how that's been built up since around Tiger, and last not least the people on their performance teams.

That's how you get great battery life.

<comment><USER60> Exactly. Apple learned a lot working on resource-constrained mobile platforms, and they brought a lot of that knowledge into OSX (one of the benefits of not having separate divisions?).

Back in Lion, the Mac would began suspending/killing processes in the background:

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/07/mac- os-x-10-7/8/#proces...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/07/mac- os-x-10-7/8/#process-model)

Devs and ubergeeks got upset ("Steve Jobs is taking away control of our desktop too!"), but obviously we are seeing the benefits with battery life. And Mavericks goes much further:

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/06/how-os-x-mavericks- work...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/06/how-os-x-mavericks-works-its- power-saving-magic/)

Update: If there's any doubt how seriously Apple takes battery life, note that their WWDC 2013 talk/video on "Maximizing Battery Life on OS X" was given by Bud Tribble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> When you have lets say 4 CPU cores and 1 active thread, Windows [by default config] wouldn't let the other CPU cores go into deep sleep [core parking] by intentionally moving the active thread from core to core. That supposedly improves performance on some tests as bringing a core from deep sleep takes some time noticeable by the tests. Keeping the cores "warm" also means increased power consumption.

</comment><comment><USER62> While the core subject seems fair enough, I'd expect Atwood not to be so utterly _stupid_ by trying to swap out _Apple_ OS X running on one of a highly restricted variety of _Apple_ Mac hardware with a generic Windows install and expect the result to be competitive. That's boxes-with-arrows mentality at its worst right there.

In any 5 year period, Apple has a _tiny_ list of _exact_ hardware configurations OS X is designed to run on. It's so small, they even use the OS X software update mechanism to push BIOS updates! They have so much room to do better than Microsoft here it's barely even funny. This isn't an excuse for Microsoft's poor performance, but if you try to gloss over the fact as Atwood does here, then you're omitting the full truth.

<comment><USER63> Later in the article Atwood does compare it with a non-generic Windows install:

> And that battery life gap is worse today – even when using Microsoft's own > > hardware, designed in Microsoft's labs, running Microsoft's latest operating > > system released this week.

The benchmark which is missing to make this article more relevant, though, is to measure and compare a hackintosh (i.e. non-apple PC + Mac OS X) battery performance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> It would really interesting to see the same battery life charts normalized for the display's power draw. I could be totally wrong here but my understanding is that that's an extremely significant factor in a lot of "casual usage" battery life benchmarks. If you take the display into account, then you can start to see how relatively efficient different OS' power management code really is.

Of course, if what you care about is the efficiency of the PM software, looking at total battery life probably isn't the most meaningful factor either, as they all have different-sized batteries, so what's important is power drain as a function of time.

<comment><USER65> These measurements are both from Anandtech, which a while back absorbed this obvious lesson and started testing at a standard 200 nits, instead of "50%" brightness like a lot of clueless review sites use (including Ars Technica, sigh).

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Perhaps the Windows Timer Resolution

> [http://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/windows-timer- > re...](http://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/windows-timer-resolution- > megawatts-wasted/)

could explain this problem?

</comment><comment><USER67> There's a comment on the article that links to [http://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/windows-timer- re...](http://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/windows-timer-resolution- megawatts-wasted/) .

Which seems to point to many apps (embarrassingly mostly MS apps) setting the OS timer interval to something like 1ms (from a default of 15.6ms) and not resetting it.

Anyone with any experience with the Windows 8 timer care to weigh in on this issue? I'm well out of my depth when it comes to processor / kernel level power tuning.

</comment><comment><USER68> To what degree does "worse battery life" mean "worse performance?" I suppose two possible wastes of energy are 1) powering components that should be sleeping 2) inefficient code.

Any of #2 would impact both.

</comment><comment><USER69> I bought a new HP laptop reecntly, with Windows 8 and touchscreen, to replace my dead Packard-Bell laptop. My old PB usually gave me about 4h battery life, and sometimes up to 6 hours. I was told my new laptop would give me 5-7h battery life, which seemed pretty good to me.

In reality I get 2.5 hours maximum. It's so bad that I actually returned the first one I got as I though something was wrong with it. Nope, 2.5 hours is it. Not even enough for a half-day working in a cafe.

So I guess 5-7h only applies if the screen is turned off, no programmes running and no wifi. Useful. :/

</comment><comment><USER70> Why did he only highlight Surface Pro?

Windows RT on the Surface 2 appears to have better battery life than the Samsung Galaxy Tab (according to his chart).

</comment><comment><USER71> The Sony VAIO Pro 13 seems to have a lower normalized power consumption in the same workload, per [http://anandtech.com/show/7417/sony-vaio- pro-13-exceptionall...](http://anandtech.com/show/7417/sony-vaio- pro-13-exceptionally-portable/4) Of course it has a much smaller battery due to it's low weight.

</comment><comment><USER72> Why does Windows have terrible battery life? Most likely for the same general reason Microsoft is losing slowly but steadily in all areas: it takes more effort and manpower to get Windows OS to perform in a particular area than it does to get a Linux-variant OS to perform. That's the fundamental implication of better design.

</comment><comment><USER73> A Surface Pro is still fundamentally (well, it is, no ifs ands or buts about it) a tablet. There is no x86 tablet on the Mac side to compare it to, and I don't think you can compare one to the other. Sure, they may be the closest in function, but not in form. You'd really need a Surface ultrabook to compare the two.

</comment><comment><USER74> Wondering how GNU/Linux distros (e.g. Fedora) stacks up against Windows 8 and OS X in terms of battery life.

<comment><USER75> On hardware for which high-quality drivers exist, GNU/Linux has the potential to outpace Windows and OS X[0] by a decent margin. The OS and kernel themselves are very power-efficient. You're not going to double your battery life or anything, but you might get a noticeable amount more. It depends a lot on what software you're running and whether you're taking advantage of any power-saving features that GNU and Linux provide.

However, unless you've chosen your hardware carefully, GNU/Linux will give you slightly worse battery life, because the drivers may be less efficient than whatever the manufacturer's native (Windows) drivers are. Again, the difference is significant statistically but not practically.

[0] The latter is a bit trickier to compare precisely, because OS X is designed specifically for very closed-source hardware for which no decent Linux drivers exist.

<comment><USER76> To put that more bluntly, Linux battery life entirely depends on the quality(1) of the Linux kernel modules for your hardware, and those vary wildly.

Yes, what Linux does in software is a lot better tuned in many places than the equivalent parts of OS X or Windows (in case of filesystem performance, sometimes frighteningly so). None of that matters when some component in your system doesn't properly enter its sleep states, because that component will suck your battery empty.

On the flip side, if you research Linux hardware support before buying your laptop, you should get very good results.

(1) Edit: I don't mean poor quality of implementation, just incomplete functionality. There's little the module maintainers can do about poorly documented hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> I didn't know Windows had a battery.

</comment><comment><USER78> Its a valid question. Writing low power software is a deliberate act, just like writing secure software is a deliberate act. Look at Linux, as far as I can tell absolutely nobody cared about low power and the Android folks did their 'wakelocks' design, which got a lot of push back.

</comment><comment> at-fates-hands This is interesting to me since I have a Lenova Windows 8 tablet and it the battery life is pretty impressive. If I use it consistently, I can easily get 10-12 hours out of it.

I'm wondering what the difference is between the hardware the Surface uses and other Windows 8 tablets.

</comment><comment><USER79> The issue has to be engineering. Is it a case of too much distance between the HW and SW people?

<comment><USER80> > The issue has to be engineering.

Did... did you just invent the technology version of Fr Jack's "That would be an ecumenical matter."

<comment><USER81> Reminds me also of Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby in _Yes Minister_ , who dodge constituents' questions with "That would be an administrative matter, you must ask Sir Humphrey" and "That would be a policy matter, you must ask the minister", respectively, until one woman complains that they always shift the blame to the other, and Sir Humphrey makes a long, obfuscating speech about the administration of policy vs the policy of administration, bamboozling her.

Here it is on YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIto5mwDLxo&feature=youtube_...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIto5mwDLxo&feature=youtube_gdata_player)

<comment><USER80> Love that show. What happened to us being able to do funny TV?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> It's always busy.

To look at what it is doing, download Procmon: [http://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/sysinternals/bb896645.asp...](http://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER12> It has to do with power management driver optimization. Linux and Hackintoshes see equally poor performance on the same hardware. People far smarter than me can explain all the different ways the OS can talk to the hardware.

</comment><comment><USER83> The shortest human read- and understandable answer to this poorly written bait article is: Mac OS is designed to run on only x, y and z hardware configurations whilst Windows is designed to run on the complete alphabet (a to z) of hardware configurations. This allows the developers of the former to have total control of the hardware and build specific workarounds, instructions and such as they know it will only run on that hardware. Windows, however, can be licensed to any hardware manufacturer. "It just works" (kinda) but that comes at the price of poor battery performance (and other things) as it isn't (and can't) be optimized as well as Mac OS.

</comment><comment><USER84> If he had done a little research beforehand he would have known how bad the RT was and there would be zero basis for his over-inflated expectations for the Pro 2.

</comment><comment><USER85> My Atom-powered Windows x86 tablet weighs 1.5 lbs (same as iPad) and gets ~10 hours of run-time. How does Windows suck at power again?

</comment><comment><USER86> Too much emulation/virtualization/sandboxing (to be able to run old corporate_win32crap.exe) badly implemented?)

</comment><comment><USER87> This is about the Surface, not Windows. I consistently have more battery life with Windows than Linux.

</comment><comment><USER88> Does anyone here have numbers of battery life on the same machine with linux?

</comment><comment><USER89> i did not even realize there was a fight. MS has real potential under different leadership - most of their products are currently horrible.

</comment><comment><USER90> Informative article as usual.

</comment><comment><USER91> I guess one problem is comparing apples with oranges. Meaning we can't compare Windows to OSX on the exact same hardware. The closest we get is running Windows via Bootcamp on a Macbook which seems to have its own issues (I don't have a Macbook but have read that multiple times.)</comment>


GMAT Preperation Tips, Tools and Tactics with Brian Galvin of Veritas Prep - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestartupslingshot.com/mba-programs-for-entrepreneurs/gmat-preperation-tips-tools-and-tactics-with-brian-galvin-of-veritas-prep/ <comment><USER2> As a Kellogg MBA, the single most important piece of advice I can give is to register for the test. Pick a date and pay the money. You will never be as prepared as you like. You can study indefinitely. Having the date will help you stay on track and focus on the areas you really need to work on.

The second best piece of advice I can offer is to take as many practice tests as you can. As you take each test, identify questions you've guessed on. When you're done with the test, go through every question you got wrong and every question you guessed on and take the time to understand that problem. This will take you a long way.

<comment><USER3> Do you still live in Chicago?</comment></comment>


Bees and the travelling salesman problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20804-zoologger-the-worlds-smartest-insect.html

<comment><USER2> We get the same story over and over again. As always, short on facts or details and long on hype. Someone really doesn't understand what the TSP is.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1835452>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1834170>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1833774>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1831271>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1830232>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1829211> <\- This one has comments</comment>


Digital license plates finally hit the road in California - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/30/17409112/digital-license-plates-california-reviver-auto <comment> King-Aaron Aside from the advertising angle, there's not many of those 'benefits' listed there which couldn't be achieved more cost effectively than with a traditional sticker (i.e. the handicap badge, etc). Police cars tend to already identify stolen or unregistered vehicles, and I don't see why adding vanity messages would be worth the additional money. All I can see here is increased complexity and cost, with a much shorter lifespan than a traditional aluminium or plastic plate.

Of course, setting it up to have a refresh rate that was out-of-sync with multinova speed cameras (and distorting any captured image of it) would be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER2> I always thought digital license plates would be privacy controls against ALPR. You could thwart casual trackers by displaying a rolling code that only police could link to a specific vehicle registration, ideally generating an audit trail along the way. Or skip plates entirely and do a cryptographic challenge/response with a transponder. Updating registration stickers is such a weird non-problem to solve. They could've done that server-side years ago.

<comment><USER3> Instead the plate embeds "targeted messaging" and makes tracking even easier. Cheap at only $7/mo!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Direct to consumer advertising in stop-n-go traffic...of course that's a thing.

<comment><USER5> This idea seems so, hostile. I'm not allowed to use my phone in my car but I can look at advertising that turns bad traffic into a revenue stream?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Finally? So typical to embed the propaganda at the lowest level.

only took 3 years "finally!": [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8950403#8950625](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8950403#8950625)

Whew, glad that "finally" happened!

CA is like the England of the US. Collapsing under it's regulatory weight, but not fast enough.

</comment><comment><USER7> Oh boy, a new attack surface! drool, drool

</comment><comment><USER8> So it's basically an iPad in the back. Can it play TV?</comment>


Drone Video Shows How Giant Containerships Enter Panama Canal's New Locks - <AUTHOR> https://gcaptain.com/watch-drone-video-shows-how-giant-containerships-enter-panama-canals-new-locks/ <comment><USER2> Where is the video?

<comment><USER3> It didn't load for me either.

Inspecting the iframe source of the "white space" shows it contains a Facebook video: [https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%...](https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fingjorgequijano%2Fvideos%2F1648686928709197%2F&show_text=0&width=560)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> By floating in it would seem.</comment>


Show HN: Python Books of the Month - <AUTHOR> https://pythonbooks.org/book-of-the-month/ <comment><USER2> I thought this was gonna be just another affiliate spam site but was pleasantly surprised. I liked the kids section. For advanced books the main ones I was looking for were all there, with the exception of Programming Collective Intelligence (I would remove the 2009 restriction, it would be fun to see all python books, and maybe just opt-in to the 2009 filter but allow people to opt out).

I like the open and informative about page and the "Made while drinking in Munich." is a nice touch :).

Nice job! Thanks for making this, and I'll definitely recommend it to people because surprisingly often get asked book recommendations for Python.

<comment><USER3>
      just another affiliate spam site

But that's _exactly_ what it is (Amazon tag pythonbooks01-20), and it's dishonest about it (it lacks any affiliation message in violation of the program's TOS).</comment></comment>


NASA C++ Coding Standards and Style Guide - <AUTHOR> https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20080039927 <comment><AUTHOR> There's also a C Standard, which is older and bigger: [https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19950022400](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19950022400)</comment>


UK has the largest online economy in the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/8091984/UK-has-the-largest-online-economy-in-the-world.html

<comment><USER2> Genuinely surprising - though with the cuts that have just been announced by the chancellor, government spending on IT infrastructure (which makes up a meaningful part of these numbers I imagine) will fall and our numbers will take a dent. Even so it is an encouragement to people selling to and into the UK.

</comment><comment><USER3> _What they've done to get to their GDP number is take the value added of everything that is connected with the internet: rather than the value added by the use of the internet._

[http://timworstall.com/2010/10/28/dodgy-statistics-here- very...](http://timworstall.com/2010/10/28/dodgy-statistics-here-very- dodgy/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+timworstall/KTZv+\(Tim+Worstall\))</comment>


Anyone know what the technology is that tracks people's location by their cellphone signal? - <AUTHOR>

i want to put together a site that uses the same technology as the recently discussed trapster.com where people press a key on their phone to mark a speed trap. the server automatically knows where the user is located by reading a signal sent by the phone and marks the spot on a map for other users to note.<p>my question: anyone know what technology is needed to implement the same technique for a different purpose? <comment><USER2> Maybe start your research with GSM localization and go from there?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_localization>

Not really my field, but a friend of mine is big into it, and I think this is what he was talking about...

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, i'll check it out.</comment></comment>


Our security auditor is an idiot - <AUTHOR> https://serverfault.com/questions/293217/our-security-auditor-is-an-idiot-how-do-i-give-him-the-information-he-wants <comment><USER2> (2011, and reappeared here about three days ago: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Our%20security%20auditor%20is%...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Our%20security%20auditor%20is%20an%20idiot&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0) )</comment>


Starbucks are facing the fiercest competitor in their history - <AUTHOR> https://seekingalpha.com/article/4230863-starbucks-luckin-coffee-bump-road-fy-2019 <comment><USER2> Just Starbucks China for now.</comment>


Write (Code) Vigorously - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/writing_words_vs_writing_software.php

<comment><AUTHOR> I was thinking about writing about how relevant I found the concept of writing vigorously (as summarized in the Elements of Style quote at the bottom of this article). I googled first to see if anyone had mande the point, and sure enough... Article's not new, but I figured maybe old enough that folks might enjoy the submission.</comment>


Ask HN: How widespread is the use of steganography tools to share illegal porn? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I am interested in this question as well. I have seen the potential use of steganography to spread child porn be used as an excuse to demonize _anyone_ who promotes cryptographic techniques, even for the quite legitimate use of protecting one's political speech from authoritarian or oppressive governments.</comment>


Spotify opens on NYSE, valuing company at almost $30B - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/03/spotify-opens-at-165-90-valuing-company-at-30-billion/ <comment><USER2> I do love Spotify as a product, however I don't think it will scale the same way Netflix does. Spotify is at the mercy of major record labels, and as their books become more transparent the record labels will squeeze every dollar they can for licensing. That is, unless they find a way to upend the record industry entirely.

Spotify has a unique position with their amazing discovery/recommendations engine- they could potentially start their own "label" and promote their own artists that sign on. Small/independent musicians could see more exposure and Spotify can deliver more music tailored for individual tastes. I've personally found myself listening to lots of small/indie artists as a result of their algorithms, to the point that these now make up the majority of my listening experience.

I think getting into concert tickets/streams, merchandise etc could help them potentially capture quite a bit of value in the future as well.

I know the comparison is similar to original content & Netflix - but keep in mind there's an opportunity cost with media (one can only consume X amount of shows/songs within a period of time). The more attention Spotify can divert away from the major record labels the better.

<comment><USER3> Starting their own label is exactly what they need to do to remain competitive. It's exactly what Netflix ended up doing and I think it's turning out pretty well for them. I wouldn't be surprised if Spotify tried poaching higher-level strategy people from Netflix.

<comment><USER4> >"Starting their own label is exactly what they need to do to remain competitive. It's exactly what Netflix ended up doing and I think it's turning out pretty well for them."

This seems to be a common refrain that Spotify can just "pull a Netflix." And this is very unlikely.

Firstly no matter how much opriginal content they could create, if they don't have back catalog it's going to be a total non-starter for the mainstream. A streaming service that has no Beatles, Pink Floyd, No Motown, No AC/DC etc is going to shed users pretty quickly.

Also music and movies occupy very different spaces in peoples lives - emotionally, socially, where and how they're consumed and shared etc.

People need music for their commute, for their workouts, for their parties, at bars and for their workdays. People only need movies when they're home or maybe stuck on an airplane.

Lastly Spotify needs to stay in the record label's good graces. If they were ever to be viewed as a competitor or a thread to any the big 3 record labels it would be reflected in punitive price increase when it came time to renegotiate their licensing deals.

<comment><USER5> > A streaming service that has no Beatles, Pink Floyd, No Motown, No AC/DC etc > is going to shed users pretty quickly.

I disagree. I think for most people music is fungible; they just want something to listen to. I think Spotify can afford to have gaps in it's library. Sure, if a large enough portion of the music industry cut them off it would be an issue, but I don't think they're in imminent danger of that.

<comment><USER6> Spotify's catalog is so spotty that it is borderline useless for me. Most small indie labels still do not publish to Spotify

If you are the kind of person that will sometimes strongly desire to listen to only one song/style/artist, and that desire is so strong that nothing else satisfies it, then Spotify not having your track can be a big deal.

If I can't build a decent playlist because Spotify's lack of coverage, that's going to be a big deal to me.

The mainstream is not sensitive to nor do they care about the logistics of music distribution. I wish there was a way for Spotify to ignore these bullshit distribution deals because the only people who care about them are megalabels and their A&R reps. I don't know of a single artist making bank off streaming...

<comment><USER7> I don't know what music you listen to but i have a pretty broad and eclectic taste and still find Spotify to be amazing for discovery.

<comment><USER6> I have never been happy with Spotify/Pandora as discovery system. Nothing beats an hourlong mp3+tracklist with real DJs pushing real buttons :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> And in Sweden, home of Spotify, the other big news is that NYSE raised Switzerland's flag.

[https://www.thelocal.se/20180403/spotify-swiss-or-swedish- wh...](https://www.thelocal.se/20180403/spotify-swiss-or-swedish-whatevs-says- new-york-stock-exchange-flies-the-wrong-flag)

<comment><USER9> Not a mistake. It's a nod to the tax havens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe my perception is off, but it seems like we're getting lots of tech IPO's in a relatively short time. Stitch Fix, Dropbox, Blue Apron, Snap, and Roku to name a few.

For a long time we weren't seeing too many big tech IPO's. Did something fundamentally change in the market to lead to this, or did all these companies just happen to make it to "market maturity" around the same time?

<comment><USER11> Are blue apron and stitch fix tech companies? I thought they were just sending out boxes of stuff to subscribers, with a website/app for taking orders?

<comment><USER12> I used to work at Blue Apron...sending people boxes of perishables is actually a very tough problem to solve and there was extensive tech powering the warehouse side of things. We had a fairly large engineering team working on these problems.

At the end of the day who really cares what is and isn't a "tech company"? Every company has a tech aspect to it these days.

<comment><USER13> How's that different from, say, the logistics of grocery stores? Yet Wegmans isn't considered a "tech company."

<comment><USER12> Most grocery stores use off-the-shelf tech for this sort of thing; our business model made a lot of that not feasible and there was a decision made early on to build it ourselves, if anything because the tech we developed could have its own value down the line.

If Wegman's was writing software like this (maybe they do! I have no idea) then I'd happily consider them a tech company.

But like I said, it's a silly thing to argue about anyways.

<comment><USER13> I used Wegmans as an example specifically because Wegmans is known for doing a lot of their own R&D to improve their operations. I don't know if they write some of their own software, but it wouldn't surprise me if they do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I just don't see how this can be a successful company long term. If the labels see any profit they will demand more fees at the next deal negotiation. To become music's Netflix they would have to produce their own music which people want to listen to, which is a lot easier said then done. The easiest route is probably to become Tidal and give the company away to a few big artists in exchange for exclusives.

<comment><USER15> They could look at purchasing Bandcamp, which has done a great job of promoting and selling independent music.

<comment><USER16> Bandcamp lets me download lists of people who've bought my music and of people who follow my profile. This is because they understand the business is _mine_ , and they're simply a service provider for that business. Even their subscription system runs right through the musician's own Stripe account, so you can always take your subscriptions elsewhere.

I don't have any reason to trust that a VC-fueled monster like Spotify understands this. If Spotify bought Bandcamp, I would remove my music from it.

VC-fueled behemoths like to make people dependent on them. I can't trust my business to a company that gets most of its money from outside investors instead of the people who use the service. Their incentives are fundamentally misaligned with my interests.

<comment><USER17> Apologies if I come across as harsh but as a consumer, I would prefer my consumption activities to remain as private as possible. In light of FB news, I don't think even some Options > Privacy Settings on Bandcamp would be sufficient since most people wouldn't do it. I hope Bandcamp is opt-in for this info.

<comment><USER15> It's opt-out, I normally leave it checked, you get the option clearly when purchasing music/items. The artist can then send updates/you get follow notices, the volume is pretty low at the moment for me at least.

<comment><USER16> That's still generally seen as opt-in among marketing types, though I can understand the perspective where pre-checking the opt-in is a kind of opt-out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm not quite clear on why people are choosing spotify over google play music - to me the google option is superior in UI and offerings (including ad-free youtube).

Am I missing something? Is it just one runs better on iPhones or is more hip (like why people choose snapchat over instagram or something)?

<comment><USER19> As someone who just made this choice, let me add some insight.

\- My friends use Spotify

\- Larger library

\- Well made playlists

\- Social feed

In the end, they are very similar products. I feel that Spotify has a huge head start on Google here, and it shows. The more mature product is Spotify. I think Google can't really compete in terms of curation and popularity.

Really, the edge cases of "music that is not on Spotify" ends up being so small that Google's upload your own music feature doesn't tip it in their favor. At least in my eyes.

<comment><USER20> Larger library? They all use the same base library afaik.

<comment><USER21> Spotify "Over 35M" [1]

Google Music 40M [2]

Apple Music 45M [3]

[1][https://press.spotify.com/us/about/](https://press.spotify.com/us/about/) [2][https://play.google.com/music/listen#/sulp](https://play.google.com/music/listen#/sulp) [3][https://www.apple.com/apple-music/](https://www.apple.com/apple-music/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Maybe they have enough capital now to adjust the Discover Weekly algorithm, which provides a weekly recipe of 30 songs that have no basis in what I listened to or have in my playlists. I do get to discover Millennial sleepily- singing voices to a disco beat and a 'laid back' riff that promises to stay in the background (thanks to a faux garagey sound). Is that what Indy means?

For pre-selected music that I listen to frequently, I use playlists with Spotify.

For truly discovering music with algorithms that work, I use Pandora.

I do notice there is NOT a lot of overlap at times, due to bizarre licensing restrictions and deals.

<comment><USER23> And I can only say that Discover Weekly and the Daily Mixes are absolutely spot-on for me.

<comment><USER24> It works great for me when I'm not experimenting. But if I listen to an album of a genre I don't normally listen to my next weeks playlist gets pretty spoiled.

<comment><USER23> You can switch to a private session if you don't want to affect your recommendations, just a heads up.

<comment><USER24> Woah. Thanks for pointing this out; never thought about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I doubt the current $150/share is sustainable given the waste, fraud, abuse, and royalties. I'm forecasting a wave of layoffs before next quarter's earnings. I'll concede the product is good and the UX is nailed. There just isn't enough innovation or growth to support the need for 5000 employees. Those of you who were users of the product 5+ years ago. How much has really changed? None of the recent acquisitions have provided any valuable gain to the company's core competencies. The company culture is a shell of what it once was, with a leader of HR hellbent on neutering the minds of employees to hire unqualified -but- DIVERSE! candidates.

<comment><USER23> >"waste, fraud, abuse"

Please give credible examples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am a closeted hobbyist musician in a rather small niche (contemporary christian music in Spanish LOL)but I don't want to live off my music. I just want to be heard by somebody. And today, trough distrokid plus spotify this is sooo posible. Which wouldn't have been in my wildest of dreams 20 years ago when I wanted to start a band with my friends. Or even 10, when I toured with a small time ska band. And since my goal is being heard and not profit I would be glad to pay for listeners.

And I don't think I'm the only one.

<comment><USER27> > a rather small niche (contemporary christian music in Spanish LOL)

I would have expected this to be a very large niche? How do the Latin American / Spanish markets treat Christian music?

<comment><USER26> Well, at least in Mexico there is no christian radio nor a big christian music industry (no Top 20 charts or any of that). So that means touring and doing the old church pilgrimage and hoping that your style of music isn't offending to some people. The chances are bigger if you land a ministry on a big church but that's not my case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I personally have supported them since beta (when they charged more) so I will probably pick up a share or two. They are certainly worth NFLX money. Music is insanely easy to produce, it is certain they will start courting artists directly, and if they can find an acquisition that fills the DIY punk music scene that was Soundcloud they will be just fine. They need more DIY content to go along with the curated big label stuff. And by DIY I mean letting every small Bandcamp DJ and artist on there. Might as well swallow everything right?

The experience on the platform was always stellar and just keeps getting better the more data they collect. It's a good example where big data isn't creepy at all, it's amazing. They constantly filter my preferences and show me the key types of songs I like to listen to, impressive in itself but the song radio aping Pandora is also impressive and way more interactive than Pandora itself.

Basically I'm mega bullish Spotify and am not even going to front like I'm not. You don't need to buy it but I doubt it goes anywhere bad. /end-activist- investor-rant

<comment><USER29> I'm as bearish as you are bullish. Spotify is getting squeezed with record labels on one side and Google/Apple (now at 38M subs compared to Spotifys 71M subs) on the other.

I also do not think the Spotify situation is anything like Netflix. First, Netflix is an add-on service for most people that compliments other video services. OTOH, few people will have multiple music streaming services. This leads to a few issues for Spotify:

1) If Spotify starts its own label, and the other labels pull their music in retaliation, Spotify is done.

2) Back catalogs and current big name artists/content is a must in music streaming - a completely different situation than Netflix was ever in. DIY punk will not carry Spotify, neither will becoming a niche DIY label.

Given Spotify's current loses I just don't see how they turn profitable. Can Spotify turn the 90M non-paying users into subscriptions?

<comment><USER28> The old ways are going away.

Where is the relevance of the label system now that producers can master and release tracks directly digital with no pressing time at all? Gucci Mane is great example of a hugely popular artist who released track after track as fast as he could grind them out, for years (decades now! go count how many mixtapes the guy has made). This is the new normal, hyper creativity and high speed production. Pop cylces are like 100x as fast. You're telling me some old white dudes in suits can A&R faster than teenagers can hashtag and invent there way into new genres and music with their laptops. Yeah right. Dinosaurs.

It was dead with Mp3s and the internet and it's just still gasping along like all the old media giants. Smaller and smaller labels are able to survive these days, finding more and more niche audiences. Music has gotten more diverse in the last 17 years and you can tell. Genres launch and burn out in months now, or develop a cult fan base and continue on for years (ICP still tours this is like my perfect example of trash that still has fans).

I'm not saying Spotify is the king but people using "the labels" as a threat, come on, we all know what disruption means. Bandcamp and Soundcloud and even Youtube have runaround the label system.

The one thing I'll grant you is that maybe subscription fees aren't enough to keep the infrastructure going. This is possible. But the big pile of data is certainly worth something now and in the future, and the ability to scoop trends might be the sword that tames whats left of the big labels monopoly.

<comment><USER29> Labels control the back catalogs, other than that I agree with you that the old ways are changing. The problem is nothing you said gives Spotify some unique advantage over Apple on the streaming side or something like cdbaby on the publishing side. Spotify can't just be some 'small' label and survive, and I'm also not sure what artist _only_ wants to be on Spotify.

Music streaming has been completely commoditized. It's an add on feature to both major phone software makers. What can Spotify uniquely bring to the table that will give it the money to survive?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Spotify Revenue (Euros)

2017 4.09 billion

2016 2.95 billion

2015 1.94 billion

Net Loss (Euros)

2017 1.2 billion

2016 539 million

Impressive revenue growth, but I can't understand the valuation given the losses.

I love their product though.

<comment><USER31> The value, well it is "investor demand"

The going public part -- well that was foretold with their last round of financing (it was a condition) and this was a strange way to do it.

You may love the product but will it last is the question. If I were going to bet I would say that 5 years down the road someone buys it for pennies on the dollar or it goes bankrupt due to toxic debt.

I wonder what the short position is on it.

<comment><USER32> > this was a strange way to do it.

This was done partially because the company itself isn't raising money. If the company executives believed they would need a large cash cushion, they would have tried to raise some cash in the deal, so they must believe they can reverse course before the cash crunch

<comment><USER31> It wasn't about raising money - they had their hand forced by the last round of debt/equity deal that they did:

[https://www.recode.net/2018/1/3/16847786/spotify-tpg- tencent...](https://www.recode.net/2018/1/3/16847786/spotify-tpg-tencent-debt- dragoneer-ipo-music-streaming)

Not that it is a great article but honestly that looks like a very messy transaction. It also looks like Spotify got the raw end of that deal. The whole thing is just crazy and I'm not sure how anyone can make sense of those numbers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Can it be a problem for Spotify that it will be hard for them to increase the revenue they extract even from the most loyal customers? If streaming music becomes a commodity and price sensitive people switch to competing services what will happen? Some companies like Apple are in nice position, because they can just sell more stuff to the loyal customers. Phone, pad and watch instead of just phone. And then more expensive variants of these.

Is there something Spotify could do to differentiate, something that matters even for those who don't value the sophisticated playlists? Should they go the Netflix route and start producing their own music? Or would it make sense to produce some other audio content? Think programs like "Serial" [1]. Or maybe some radio drama [2]?

[1] [https://serialpodcast.org/](https://serialpodcast.org/) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_drama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_drama)

<comment><USER34> Streaming music kind of already is a commodity and the main thing that keeps users tethered to a service are playlists. I'm sure Spotify could eventually raise prices a bit but obviously only so much.

I think their biggest threat would be Amazon getting their music service in order and baking the current paid version into the cost of a Prime membership.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Contrasting this offering, where there were no underwriters and things proceeded spectacularly, with the Dropbox IPO, where the underwriters added negative value, speaks profoundly to the future role of private markets in the capital markets for technology companies.

Disclaimer: I bet my career on private markets supplanting public ones, in respect of certain technology companies, many years ago.

<comment><USER36> I don't get this argument. Don't the underwriters provide an obvious service that will always have utility for some private companies: risk management?

<comment><USER37> My understanding is that the underwriters are gatekeepers, not risk managers. If your stock underperforms, you have to pay them back, but if your stock over performs, they keep the extra.

In theory the service they provide is valuation, but in this day and age of instant information, that really isn't necessary anymore. Back in the day when it took a few days for a person to execute a trade, maybe they provided valuable insight, but now, with stock trades for retail investors taking seconds from "I want that" to "I have that", they don't really have better information anymore.

<comment><USER38> > My understanding is that the underwriters are gatekeepers, not risk > managers. If your stock underperforms, you have to pay them back, but if > your stock over performs, they keep the extra.

That's typically not true. The underwriter isn't guaranteed the difference. They're basically an insurer: the company is able to know (before the IPO) exactly how much money they can expect to make on it. In exchange for this certainty, the forego the potential upside (the chance that the opening price will be much higher, in which case the company is leaving money on the table).

In this case, Spotify isn't even raising any money (because this is a direct listing, not an IPO), so there's no point for underwriters, because... well, there's no uncertainty about how much money they'll be raising, since they're not raising any.

<comment><USER37> That's what I thought too, but someone from the investment banking industry corrected me the last time I said that, and pointed out that "banks never lose money", and that the company does eventually have to repay them.

<comment><USER38> Underwriters aren't gatekeepers by definition, because there's nothing preventing companies from foregoing underwriters. But almost every single company that goes public chooses to[0], because they gain significant value from the process.

There are a few exceptions - Google is the most famous one. But they're rare, and even Google ran into trouble with theirs - they literally had to cut the size of the amount they raised in _half_ about a week before the IPO, because the demand was lower than they thought, and then ended up leaving a lot money on the table.

We forget about all of that today because Google is _now_ a successful public company. But their IPO was unambiguously a disaster from the company's perspective - they would have raised much more money with a conventional process.

> That's what I thought too, but someone from the investment banking industry > corrected me the last time I said that, and pointed out that "banks never > lose money", and that the company does eventually have to repay them.

No, that's not true. If the IPO is undersubscribed, the company isn't liable for making the bank whole. If that were true, then yes, there would be literally no reason for a company to use an underwriter, because there's no requirement to.

<comment><USER37> > because there's nothing preventing companies from foregoing underwriters.

Isn't that like saying "there is nothing that prevents you from using highways"? Like sure, you don't _have_ to use an underwriter, but, as you pointed out with the Google example, it won't go well for you if you leave them out.

<comment><USER38> > Like sure, you don't have to use an underwriter, but, as you pointed out > with the Google example, it won't go well for you if you leave them out.

Well, the original claim was that underwriters provide negative value. There's a tradeoff, but clearly they _do_ provide positive value, on net.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> 1/ Spotify is not Netflix. There won't be a Netfix for music.

2/ Netflix, with almost 118 million subscribers worldwide, has allayed concerns about its slowing growth by reminding analysts there are more than 700 million broadband households. Spotify, with 71 million paying users, touts an even larger number in its filing: 1.6 billion payment-enabled smartphone owners expected by 2021. #Growth

3/ Spotify delivers more than 70 percent of its sales to music rights holders, despite efforts to improve profit margins.

4/ Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, Merlin (the representative for many independent labels), which own 87% of the music on Spotify as measured by streams.

5/ It seems highly unlikely Spotify's Cost of Revenue will improve much in the short-term: those record deals are locked in until at least next year.

6/ It means once the growth of Spotify starts to slow even a bit, it will has very serious trouble.

7/ Netflix is building its own studio to produce shows on its own. Spotify says it has no interest in signing artists, or paying for artists to record. (They don't have the capital)

8/ However, it has another plan to reduce its reliance on its main suppliers: by making them less relevant. "The old model favoured certain gatekeepers. Artists had to be signed to a label," chief executive Daniel Ek wrote in a letter included in the filing.

"They needed access to a recording studio, and they had to be played on terrestrial radio to achieve success. Today, artists can produce and release their own music. Labels, studios, and radio still matter, but in a cluttered landscape, artists' biggest challenge is navigating this complexity to get heard. We believe Spotify empowers them to break through."

(Ref 4/: Those labels own 85% of the music on Spotify as measured by streams. Progress of empowering: 15%.)

9/ This goal sounds like "the Podcast model" started in 2005, unfortunately, by their biggest competitor: Apple.

Spotify's Dilemma: [https://allenleein.github.io/brains/2018/03/spotifys- dilemma](https://allenleein.github.io/brains/2018/03/spotifys-dilemma)

</comment><comment><USER40> biggest jump ball: Apple/Google/Amazon competing services. spotify deserves real credit for changing how people consume music, and I think that story will serve them well in the short-term, but their biggest risk is Apple/Google/Amazon who provide competing services that don't have any current pressure to turn a profit - Tim Cook basically said "we don't plan to make money"[1], a bad thing to hear from your primary competitor who also happens to be the most valuable company in the world. as i've said before on diff threads, I would not be surprised if Apple announces a big price decrease or other apple music news right before Spotify's first or second earnings report.

still, impressive for them to make it this far, if they can really find a path to profitability that also fairly compensates artists, I wish them the best! I think it's more likely that as apple/google/amazon force them to continue to operate at a loss, downward pressure on their stock will make them a good acquisition target for one of the big tech companies looking to compete with Apple Music (Amazon seems like a real possibility here - a spotify acquisition feels similar in size and scope to their recent WF acquisition, essentially another double-down on their "everything store" vision/story).

[1] [https://www.fastcompany.com/40525409/why-apple-is-the- worlds...](https://www.fastcompany.com/40525409/why-apple-is-the-worlds-most- innovative-company)

<comment><USER23> I for one would not switch to Apple Music. No web app, no desktop app for Linux.

Google Play Music _could_ be an option, at least they have a functional web player, but neither it nor the Android app are anywhere close to Spotify's apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Not enough people talking about this: The fundamental challenge for Spotify is they have to make money while Apple Music doesn't.

Apple Music can run break-even as a platform feature, like the App Store was (at least in the early days). Or they could pay artists more with that margin and get more exclusives. Either way, it's a _fundamental long term competitive disadvantage_ for Spotify.

<comment><USER42> I know it's just an acecdote, but I don't know a single person that uses Apple Music. Spotify already has a huge library and mindshare. It was too little too late for Apple IMO

<comment><USER41> Which is why you should never draw conclusions from anecdotes.[1]

[1] _Apple Music is set to surpass Spotify in paid US subscribers this summer_ [https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/4/16971436/apple-music- surpa...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/4/16971436/apple-music-surpass- spotify-us-subscribers)

<comment><USER43> Most of these users are converting from their shrinking iTunes business.

<comment><USER41> So what's your point? Apple Music is still overtaking Spotify this year. And just like iTunes, they don't need to make much money on it.

<comment><USER23> Only in the US, Spotify is _huge_ in Europe and other parts of the world, where Apple Music is basically unknown.

<comment><USER41> Spotify is actually _small_ in the world. All music service subscribers combined are a mere ~110 million.

Eddy Cue recent pegged the market opportunity at 2 billion.[1]

And Apple Music ramping the fastest.[2]

[1] [https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-music-hits-38-million- subscr...](https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-music-hits-38-million-subscribers/)

[2] [https://twitter.com/asymco/status/973568200616050688?ref_src...](https://twitter.com/asymco/status/973568200616050688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

<comment><USER23> Comparing Spotify to other streaming services, obviously.

Apple music is basically a no-show in Europe and Asia.

And those numbers are only paid subs. Spotify has a ton of free, ad-listening users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Congrats to them, but I don't think I'll ever understand renting music. I can understand Netflix's success because movie content is much less replayable and more expensive, but music is relatively cheap to own your own collection. I love music, but I don't understand the appeal of Spotify and Pandora—I'd rather take the cost of subscription and build out my library over time.

<comment><USER23> Think of it as a subscription to a larger library than you'll ever be able to amass yourself.

Sure, you'll collect all of your favorite music, but what if you want to branch out a little? What if you want recommendations that are tailored for you, based on your music taste?

For me, one of the main services Spotify provides is access to occasional music, stuff that I wouldn't bother to collect, but is nice to have on hand, either for parties or just curiosity. The other main service is their recommendation engine, which reliably presents me with interesting bands and albums that I didn't know about, but fit very well with my tastes.

I consider $10/month a bargain for those services.

(I still keep an offline collection of my absolute very favorite albums, of course)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Spotify is fantastic. Excellent usability. I can control the output of my iPhone Spotify app using the app running on my linux computer.

<comment><USER23> Spotify Connect is one of their real killer features. It just _works_ so damn well, and independent of Airplay, Chromecast, Sonos and other locked-down methods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I'm afraid about what will happen as more of these streaming services compete. It seems to be mirroring the Netflix/Hulu/Disney battleground -- subscription platforms which start differentiating themselves by owning exclusive content. Spotify has started this, and Jay-Z & Co have refused to give streaming rights to their competitors, such that Spotify doesn't have access to any Jay-Z, or, oddly enough, any Metallica.

The problem here is that I purchase these subscriptions so that I can have access to all of the music I haven't decided that I want to own forever yet. If this trend continues and streaming platforms become more and more exclusive, I will likely cancel my subscriptions, buy my music from the artists directly, and say goodbye to renting rather than owning music.

<comment><USER47> Metallica's collection is definitely available on Spotify... at least in the US.

<comment><USER46> Oh, thank you! I had it backwards. Tidal doesn't have Metallica, while Spotify doesn't have Jay-Z and friends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> > The company says that in 2018, shares traded on the private markets between > $90 and $132.50.

> Losses for last year were 1.2 billion Euros ($1.47 billion), which compares > to 539 million Euros ($661 million) the year before.

Well, there's the short of the year.

<comment><USER49> May I introduce you to the Efficient Market Hypothesis ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient- market_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient- market_hypothesis)).

<comment><USER50> I can't tell if you're serious (Poe's Law), but very few economists find EMH to be credible. Did you even read the "Criticisms" section of that wikipedia entry?

<comment><USER49> I went further and read many books on both the EMH and behavioral economics, which is basically its polar opposite. I believe EMH to be true at a point in time. One of the inputs to the price is market psychology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Nothing to celebrate. My CDs from twenty years ago still work. Why would I invest time in Spotify when one day all the music just disappears, or they raise prices, etc.?

If this is the future it doesn't feel like progress.

<comment><USER52> Spotify is a service, not a product. Unless you similarly eschew cellular service and grid electricity, I'm not sure what your point is.

<comment><USER53> What to come and look at my electric collection ? Just don't touch any of the capacitors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> As of writing this the market price is $150, dropping from $165. But almost surely this is a win for employees who derail the 6 month lockup uncertainty.

</comment><comment><USER55> I wonder how you'd value Google Play Music alone based on this type of comp. Anyone have an idea of what the number could be like w/ rationale?

<comment><USER56> Apple Music and Google Play Music are each approximately half the size of Spotify (by subscriber). Assuming that the revenues for each service are similar (on a subscriber basis) and overhead would be similar if they were spun out, then you are just valuing them based on the number of current subscribers. Given the low friction in switching services, subscribers are around the same value for each service. My guess based on this back of the napkin math then, is that $15B for would be the comp for each of Apple Music and Google Play Music, though you would need to consider any debt held by the companies (standing for Spotify, or as part of the spin-out by the other two).

That's just how I think the comp would work, I don't think any of those companies are worth those values, including Spotify.

<comment><USER57> > low friction of switching services

I don't agree with this. Most people build up a catalog of songs/playlists on one platform and moving to a new one and re-discovering all your music is quite a pain in the ass. This was one of the main reasons I was a late adopter of Spotify (I work in the Music Industry).. there was no easy way for me to take local libraries/playlists and create Spotify playlists from them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> How is Spotify raising capital from this if it's not selling shares directly? Will it wait until later to offer stock directly to the markets?

<comment><USER59> They aren't raising any capital. This is an opportunity for the shareholders (and maybe for employees with stock options) to cash out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Company valued at $30 billion. Artists continue to receive almost nothing for their music being played.

Something doesn't add up here.

<comment><USER57> > Artists continue to receive almost nothing for their music being played

This is kind of FUD. There's a lot of royalties flowing out of Spotify. While it's true the payouts for many artists are smaller than they should be, 90+% of artists simply get very few plays on Streaming services and thus make no money.

And Spotify isn't the only one to blame here. Most music goes through a process like this:

Artist -> Label -> Distributor -> Storefront

Spotify is only the storefront.. but both the Distributor (the "big three" labels UMG, Sony, and Warner do their own distribution) and the record label take a cut. There's also additional overhead for the artist, such as paying out to producers, writers (if they don't write themselves) etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Let the buzz fade away... wait for it to drop below $100 then look at your options. I don't understand why people still want to jump and buy shares the same day a private company goes public considering the hype, etc. Why would you lose that much that fast?

</comment><comment><USER62> So i bought in, who knows where this will go though :)

One of my hopes it that just like NFLX, once the company focuses on producing / licensing it's own content they can do really well.

I'm interested in hearing what others have to say on this! Did you buy, will you buy? Why?

<comment><USER63> I don't know much about buying shares but I would like to buy in and invest. Care to give me feedback on that? Where did you buy in?

<comment><USER64> I don't know too much about buying shares, but anyone that knows less than even me should not be buying individual stocks (that too based on IPO day hype).

[https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started)

<comment><USER23> Absolutely. Buy index funds, don't worry so much about fluctuations, keep a long-term perspective.

<comment><USER62> I agree with the above two remarks. In my situation the money i "experiment" with at an individual stock level is not relevant to my end of work plan. I assume the spend is as healthy as buying a sports car, and while I'd love to be wrong, I'd encourage you to buy index funds and treat individual stock picks in the same manner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I don't get it. They don't own the IPR so at best it's a thin revenue model on giant cashflow to agencies. All it's got is cost side risk and a thin skin of ui advantage.

Maybe it's me. I have no track record identifying winners or losers.

</comment><comment><USER66> Since this is just shares changing hands and not bringing money into the company - what is the impact for Spotify? Does the company itself own shares? How much money has Spotify in the bank these days?

</comment><comment><USER67> Their product is a lot more powerful than Soundcloud's (even though the target users might slightly differ).

I really hope they have a solid roadmap and wish them the best.

<comment><USER68> I'm not familiar too much with SoundCloud recently. But didn't they almost go bankrupt before having last minute money raised?

<comment><USER67> Yeah, SoundCloud has an unsustainable ecosystem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Does anyone have any idea how much Spotify is used for music vs. spoken content (e.g. podcasts/audiobooks)? Or in Soundcloud's case?

</comment><comment><USER70> How much are the investment bankers earning on this?

<comment><USER37> Edit: Apparently I was wrong, they still paid a bunch of bankers for advice, but technically they aren't making anything by skimming off the top like most IPOs.

I think nothing.

It's a direct sale, so the insiders (including the employees, not just the execs) get to sell however many shares they want directly to public shareholders.

So the company doesn't make any money either, just the shareholders. I suppose at some point the company itself could sell shares, and then maybe a banker would get involved, but since it would already be publicly listed, I'm not sure they'd have to be.

<comment><USER71> They're actually making more from Spotify's direct listing than they did for Dropbox's full on IPO... So much for disrupting the business model!

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-26/spotify-l...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-26/spotify- listing-disrupts-the-ipo-but-keeps-the-costs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> I'm glad the DPO model was successful -- would be great if it, or something like it, became the default.

</comment><comment><USER73> im curious why spotify does not enable artist sell merchandise and tickets on its platform. as a free user I would prefer to see ads for merch and events happening near my town from my favorite artists rather than annoying ads of products and services I have 0 interest in.

</comment><comment><USER74> If the original investors want to sell their shares, I'm not sure it's a good sign?

<comment><USER75> VCs usually aim for very high ROI. Even if your investment still increases in value more than market rate interest rates, for a VC it might be more valuable to sell them to preserve its own metrics (each year you keep the shares, your average ROI decreases).

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Maybe they'll make an Apple TV app now? Does anyone know why that doesn't exist yet?

</comment><comment><USER77> With no underwriting Banks to support the IPO the price is steadily going down since the open...

<comment><USER78> There is no IPO price. This is not an IPO.

<comment><USER77> Precisely... How much down did it close at the end?

<comment><USER78> There is no "down" because there was no IPO price to begin with. price_change = current_price - previous_price. There was no made up IPO price on Monday, so there was no made up level to defend.

The only previous price we had was the last private round. And I think the close was about 60% higher than their last funding round.

<comment><USER77> Open for regular investors to trade at 165.90, close at 149.01 = almost 10% down for the first day...

Today open at 140.00 another 6% gap down...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> today at the gym i heard some awesome songs so i asked what it was and they said "spotify radio". its impossible for me to recreate that list.

</comment><comment><USER79> Google can kill them at any moment with Play.

<comment><USER23> Really? How?

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Not enough for a native desktop app?

</comment><comment><USER81> Congrats Spotify!

</comment><comment><USER82> This has investment bankers quaking in their boots.

<comment><USER83> Not even remotely - they made out better on this than other recent IPOs.

They are paying 35 - 40 euros or ~$45 million at the midpoint. If they float $1 billion in shares today, that means fees are 4.5% of the overall "offering", or almost exactly what Dropbox paid.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-26/spotify-l...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-26/spotify- listing-disrupts-the-ipo-but-keeps-the-costs)</comment></comment>


M-Disc is a DVD made out of stone that lasts 1,000 years - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/92286-m-disc-is-a-dvd-made-out-of-stone-that-lasts-1000-years

<comment><USER2> I don't buy it (as a backup philosophy). For starters, there is a difference between wanting to replace your data in the event of a drive failure, and wanting your descendants 1,000 years from now to be able to read your data.

In the former case, there is nothing special about the 1,000 lifespan, and on a $/GB level, you would do better to use an online backup or redundant drive solution. Let's assume that in 10 years your drive will fail and you need 1TB of data restored. You would need 218 of these disks (or $1,526 worth of the backup medium). Given the same 10 years, an online solution like Carbonite runs $60/year, or $600 for "unlimited" data over 10 years. Granted, on year 11 you lose all of that data unless you keep paying, but there are other benefits like continual backups (whereas this disk is permanently written with 10 year old data, while the online system backed up your photos from last weekend). Assuming you don't want your data in someone else's hands, let's assume you want to store your data on a local hard drive. Of course you're smart and cautious, so you have a raid backup drive. 1TB external drives run for $160. Let's assume a life span of 5 years on average (I've seen better, and I've seen worse). Not counting the original data on your computer's internal drive, you would need 4 drives to cover 10 years (2 drive in a raid configuration, given 5 year's lifespan). This will cost you $640.

However you slice the near-term backup, I can't see the benefits of a permaDVD.

For long-term, archival purposes, this system might make more sense. I'm not sure what other systems are out there that can estimate a 1,000 year lifespan (at $1.50/GB). Then again, imagine trying to find a DVD player in 1,000 years.

<comment><USER3> > _For long-term, archival purposes, this system might make more sense. I'm > not sure what other systems are out there that can estimate a 1,000 year > lifespan (at $1.50/GB). Then again, imagine trying to find a DVD player in > 1,000 years._

Yeah, the article was a little shortsighted for not recognizing that the use case here is not for avg Joe's, but for cloud providers and enterprise datacenters that want better data archival systems. Avg Joe's are going to be migrating to cloud storage, be it Spotify, Amazon Cloud Player, Google Music, Apple, Dropbox, Spideroak, whatever. Those companies are big potential customers for this, depending on how compelling the M-Disc's cost and replacement rates are vs whatever is currently state-of-the-art for archival.

I am not a data archiving expert, but it sounds like there are two threats to data stored on media - intrinsic entropy and extrinsic factors like EM, UV, heat, etc. The test they did sounds like it compressed many years of the latter into 24 hours, but is it possible to simulate the former?</comment></comment>


Avoiding the Passion Pop Gulf - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/05/avoiding-the-pa.html

<comment><USER2> Compare this to a GIS for crossing the chasm:

<http://images.google.com/images?q=crossing%20the%20chasm>

Seth's idea to redraw the curve from the POV of the user is brilliant. I'm tempted to cut and paste this onto the cover of my next business plan with a big X on the part of the passion curve where my idea product is targeted, but of course I won't since no one will get it.

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen Makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER3> A Perfect example for us:

Mac > PC

<comment><USER4> But where is the gulf between Mac and PC?

For Linux and Mac/PC, the gulf might be where SuSE went. I liked SuSE, but once Novel bought them it seems like they tried to move toward Pop and slid into the "gulf".

So, PC on one peak, Ubuntu on the other, and Slackware far to the left?</comment></comment>


"KEFT Join" Works the Same as "Left Join" in MySQL 5.7.19 - <AUTHOR> Just found out "KEFT JOIN" works the same as "LEFT JOIN" in MySQL 5.7.19 and I just noticed it saved me a 3AM call out last night<p>Anyone else have incidents where bugs actually helped? <comment><USER2> I don't think "keft join" is the same as "left join".

"select * from table1 keft join table2 using (somecol)" is an inner join of table1 and table2, but table1 is assigned the alias "keft", because "AS" between table and its alias is optional.</comment>